


Remodeling

by Tardis_Witch



Series: Marvel One-shots and Drabbles [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Sadness, agnst, because nat doesn't know how to comfort people, clint is sad, except no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tardis_Witch/pseuds/Tardis_Witch
Summary: Natasha gets a call from Clint while he's on the run. They talk about his family and then everything gets sad.





	Remodeling

Natasha paused in the middle of her morning workouts when her phone started buzzing across the room. She frowned, no one was calling her these days, not even Tony, not after he'd sunk into his self-pitying despair that had set in after the fiasco with The Winter Soldier and The Sokovia Accords. He'd forwarded Steve's letter to her, but from then she hadn't heard from him, or anyone, besides the occasional call from Laura. She's phoned a couple of times to see if Natasha had any word on Clint, but the answer had always been no. She picked up the phone, which displayed an unknown number, shrugged, and answered.

"Hey Nat," a rough masculine voice said over the other line. She smiled, another thing that hadn't happened in a while.

"Clint," she said, "long time no see, hope those bruises I left you didn't last too long."

He groaned and she could tell he was rolling his eyes. "nah, they didn't sting as much as those handcuffs I got strapped into."

"Clint…" Natasha said, with sympathy and warning mixed in her voice.

"Don’t try to justify his actions, Nat," Clint said tiredly. "You know as well as I do that he could've done a number of things differently, and the four of us wouldn't have ended up behind bars."

"Well, you're not there now and that should be what matters." Nat said, trying to keep the conversation positive. She did not want her first conversation with her friend in months to center around all the things Tony Stark, and by extension, she, herself, had done wrong. "I am very sorry," she added quietly, "Laura's really worried about you," she said. "Nathaniel's getting pretty big, and the kids miss their dad. From the sound of it they were getting pretty used to having you around."

"awww yeah" he said, "I was thinking of stopping by soon. That is, if I can without the big bad government catching me and, y'know, tearing me out of my wife's arms and off to a high security prison."

"I thought your family was off the records," Natasha said, "how would they even find them?"

"Well, a certain bearded egomaniac may have mentioned, while being monitored, that I should've 'thought of my family' before joining up with cap," Clint said bitterly, "and while I'm sure no one thought much of it at the time, after escaping a supposedly inescapable prison chances are that they're doing anything they can to find me, so I'm betting they've done a bit of research."

"Oh Clint I'm so sorry," Natasha said, suddenly glad she'd had nothing to tell Laura when she'd called. Who knew if authorities had come to her, trying to find Clint? It was best if she couldn’t give them any answers.

"Ah, it ain't so bad," Clint said dismissively. "Y'know, it drove Laura half crazy, living like that for years; couldn't give 'er address out, never having visitors, homeschooling the kids - who's only real source of society are each other. Maybe now they can quit all that, live like normal people." He snorted derisively, although Natasha couldn't tell if the contempt was aimed at the idea of a normal life, or at himself for depriving them of one.

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to each other's breathing and trying to gauge the mental and emotional sate of the other through only that rhythm.

"Clint?" Natasha finally ventured to say.

"What?" he answered, sounding tired.

"Why did you decide to join cap?" she asked, then hurried to finish her thought before he answered, "and I don't mean over Tony. Just … you were retired. You were out, the Sokovia accords wouldn't have even really affected you, you could've just stayed home, why didn't you?"

"Other than the sheer pleasure of defying The Grand Tony Stark?" he said sarcastically, "Well, the kid needed me. Wanda, y'know she was holed up in that facility of Stark's. She needed someone to get 'er out."

Natasha shook her head, hearing the insincerity in his voice. "Clint we both know that's not the reason. Steve would've found another way to free Wanda. You could have said no when he asked you. Why didn't you?"

There was a long pause before he answered. "I was dying in there, Nat," Clint said quietly. "The farm, the kids, the routine. Retirement didn't agree with me I guess," he said with a bitter laugh. More silence, followed by a sigh. "I love 'em Nat, I really do, it's just … I don't understand their world. They're all so - so   normal. They have every meal together as a family, Laura taught them all good manners, they do their school work on time, and G-d they're so smart," he took another deep breath to keep his voice from shaking. "I just don't really belong there. Y'know, Cooper has no idea what it's like to be beaten head to toe for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. My kids are never going to know what's it's like to have to fend for yourself in harsh city streets. And of course I'm so thankful for that. I would never ever want them to go through anything like what my childhood was like, but I feel like an alien when I'm there. "

"Clint, I had no idea," Natasha said quietly, not sure what else to say. She had always assumed she was the only one who felt out of place when surrounded by actually healthy, happy people. She loved visiting the farm house, but she understood what Clint was saying. After a while her skin started to crawl, the picturesque family home only served as a reminder of what her childhood had looked like. But she was still an outsider, even if she was a close friend. She couldn't imagine what it must be like for Clint, to feel so out of place among his own family.

"You know why I always find some new project to remodel the house?" he asked. Under a different circumstance Natasha might've made a joke about perfectionism, but now didn't seem the time. He answered himself before she had a chance to think of an appropriate response. "So I have an excuse to come back," he said, voice wavering. "I don't think I even really knew that, consciously, at first. But it's true. If I leave an unfinished project then I have a reason to return. A reason to be there, something to do, something  I'm good at. One of the only things my kids don't surpass me in, besides marksmanship, and Lila's getting pretty good at that already," He chuckled softly. "She picked up a bow an arrows a couple years ago, saying that she wanted to be just like Daddy. How could anyone want to be like me?"

Natasha had no response to that. She listened helplessly to her best-friend on the other side of the line, as he cried silently and she could do nothing to help him.


End file.
